Leadership for a Land-Positive Future: High-level Forum of Mining Industry Leaders - Action Dome, UNCCD COP17

Good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished ministers, industry leaders, indigenous representatives, expert partners, and colleagues, welcome to Leadership for a Land Positive Future, the high-level forum of mining industry leaders. We gather at the UNFCCC COP17 in Ulaanbaatar at a critical moment. The mining sector supplies minerals and metals that are absolutely essential for infrastructure development and the clean energy transition. Yet mining activities can also contribute to land degradation, biodiversity loss, water pressures, and of course, many social impacts. So today's discussion is about how the sector globally can work with governments, communities and international partners to support land restoration, responsible mine closure, circular economy approaches and of course resilient post mining landscapes. So to open the forum, I am so honored and it's my pleasure to invite His Excellency Damyagyn Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources of Mongolia. Minister, the floor is yours.

Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody. It's a great honor to me deliver some speech here and it's good to see that the entire world is coming to my home. and discussing about this against the certification and how we can conduct and how we can move forward altogether. Since there is official translation, let me allow to speak in my mother language. Unodur Mongolsin isle dodambaatar hotod, nixun isne bagolging, sulchikto dimtsikanyentsin tadodding, arondolto rekording gurand, ditking odolhan salbring, mandalakhchitig, hamtutunokhteng afchueda, Mongolsin, zaskin gazri niri umnos wodong, ajuldu rilsoilgi amne, hamtadnikhan niri umnos kunya eftagailirgilya. Az dondu datzin busnokta san hota en himjini chotok jokham bagochue, Mongolsin hovd, took a shot of the whole job. John, I got to make sure I'm not doing too early. Restoring the land, restoring hope. So we're under a bit in the middle of the same story. We're pushing. We're going to learn a lot of different things. I was talking about the whole thing. So I'll just get to the rest of the story. So I'll just go ahead and get to the rest of the story. So I'll just go ahead toonik, kirken hamgad chatkoe gitges shod hamarste. Timee siin esodot mangling hoot andli mish emderling ututotminge baitit sarist basarone. Toonism bit, diskin ilsvaisken tamakhm noosto, odorkhang tirgus kosarnodini gitger anslogvetek. Tseur uschim ushinisilchit, diskin dit utsin hugslin undisvasen, It's always good to be able to see the future, but it's also good to be able to see the future. It's always good to be able to see the future. It's always good to see the future. It's always good to see the future. I think it's always good to see the future. It's always good to see My God, I think it's okay to talk about it. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do it. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to talk about it. I'm not sure if I'm going to talk about it. I'm not sure if I'm going to English But it's a whole different story. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't. I don't know. I don't know. I don't. Older than something that's going to be a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little My English is not very good, so I will try to speak in my own language. I am very happy to be here today. I am very happy to be here today. I am very happy that I am here today. I am very happy that I am here today. I would like to say that I am very happy to be here today. I would like to say that I am very happy to Before I'll be business for land, current, old or can suddenly, but that is the new system, which is the future of the future. I'm not going to go to the future, I'm not going to go to the future. I'm not going to go to the future. I'm not going include children, and I'm going to introduce you to the Secretary General of the G20 Global Land Initiative, Mongolian Business Insider, ICMM, IRMA, and Basut Book, which are going to be published in 2022. I'm going to be talking about the impact of land use on

the environment. I'm going to be talking

Coming from Chile, your words resonate very much to me and I hope that Mongolia definitely reaches all the elements of competitiveness in the mining sector through your agenda. So now I would like to invite Mrs. Andrea Mesa, Deputy Executive Secretary of UNCCD, to deliver her opening remarks. Mrs. Andrea, please, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Gonzalo. Excellency and Excellencies and distinguished representatives of the private sector, of civil society, of different entities, all protocol observed. And I really want to thank the Business Council of Mongolia, the different mining companies that are here to really open what I will call a very unique momentum within our process, within the UNCCD process. It's the first time ever that we're holding a mining forum inside one of the cups. And really, we thank the leadership of the government of Mongolia because they were really keen in opening this constructive conversation. We are facing different transitions, an energy transition that will require a lot of minerals. We're facing a digitalization process as well, demanding a lot of minerals. And we are facing as well an ecological transition. All of these, we need to integrate it to guarantee that we can achieve new development models. And I think that this is where Mongolia is really trying to bring this innovation and these conversations, these needed conversations. Because at the end, all of these processes, all these transitions could generate welfare, new jobs, economic growth. But we need to do this within the planetary boundaries. And it is possible. We have that knowledge. We have the technology to do so. But we need the right policy frameworks. We need the right incentives. And we need to find ways to engage because all these transitions can only be done if we implement what I call the four C's approach, meaning that we need to engage citizens, cities, of course, the countries, but also the companies. And this is the only way in which we can scale up the solutions, the innovations, all these good practices that we are seeing, And some months ago, we were in the Gobi Desert, and I had the opportunity to visit a mining, and it was the operation of OT there. And I was very much impressed, I must say. For me, it was the first time ever visiting one of these minings. And of course, we know that there is a lot of challenges, and this is why, as well, we need those good standards to be implemented by everyone because we need to level the field. It's about that. And I'm very excited that today as well, we will be hearing from different countries that have those assets, those minerals, but they want them to be exploded in a way that will generate economic benefit and impact to their communities and to their countries, to the public finance as well. So I think that this is a unique opportunity to have a frank conversation, a frank dialogue on how we can generate these new models. How can we address illegal mining? It's a big problem. And I think that this is part of the things that some of the ministers from different countries will bring and how do we really make these different high impact sectors part of the conversation. We don't see them as enemies. We see them as part of the solution. And this is why we're very excited that we're having this event the first time ever. Probably you will start a new thing in our process and we welcome new partnerships, initiatives that can really demonstrate that this is possible. So Thank you, Minister. Thank you to the Mongolian Business Council and to the different entities to really believe that we can have open and new partnerships, new platforms to generate and bring solutions on the ground. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Andrea. Brilliant. the opportunity that you were referring to as the mining sector to have the capacity of contributing to the goals of the land degradation and land neutrality of this convention. So now I would like to invite Mr. Biamba Saikhan, the vice chair of the Business Council of Mongolia for his opening remarks. My friend Biamba, you have the floor.

Thank you, Gonzalo. Minister Demjan and Excellencies, I'm very happy to welcome you all here again. And Andrea, thank you for the kind words. I think speaking after Demka said and Andrea is not easy, but I'll try to keep it short because Gonzalo has time constraints. So as mentioned, we gathered in the Gobi Desert thanks to Sean, Katie, a couple of months ago, right? A month half ago yeah and uh we uh discussed a lot of things that are related to dryland mining and uh uh what uh I'll give you one statistic I'm very uh not fond of statistics but one is we learned during that time that uh Mongolian goy desert and which Minister just said 77% of our uh land is degraded right and 2.2 degrees And that's almost twice as higher than the global average. And that's where these companies are operating. The companies like OT and others who are present here operating in that environment. And I think we need to bring this to a new level as we discussed before. And this morning, I'm very honored to be also a Business for Land business champion. And we have our fellow champions here in the room. And we are here to promote the Business for Land platform as well. And the platform comprises of three pillars. One is business transformation, the other one is attracting finance, and the third one is advocacy. So we've been focusing on advocacy quite a bit, and that's where the Business Council of Mongolia comes in. The BCM has been working tirelessly for almost two years with UNCCD and bringing the mining into the B4L platform. And I think this is going to be transformational. And again, thank you everyone who has worked very hard on this. We have, I think, Joanne here, and the Global Land Initiative, G20. So, Andrea, thank you for taking the initiative forward. And I think a couple of days from now, we'll be able to answer to Minister's challenge, right, where we will be making certain commitments and starting new initiatives that are related to improving business, improving business not only in the as usual, but business unusual ways. and making it smarter. So this is again my message to you all and thank you very much for gathering here for our first mining forum and one of many to come in the future. Gonzalo.

Thank you so much. And thank to the three of you, Minister Dandiam, Mrs. Mesa, Mr. Bianvasayan for your opening remarks. Now it's time for us to talk about our ambition. Our ambition is to mobilize leadership and leadership with commitments to accelerate partnership, to highlight government best practices, to promote restoration finance, to talk about those hard and difficult topics for mining and to address them in the way that the UNCCD expects us to do. We'll therefore, we'll move now to our high level commitments and action segment. And therefore, it's my pleasure to invite His Excellency, Abu Bamba, Minister of Environment and Ecological Transition of the Republic of Cote d'Ivoire to share the main challenges and opportunities about mining in Cote d'Ivoire. Minister, you have the floor.

Good afternoon once again. excellencies, distinguished leaders of the mining industry, representatives of international organization, ladies and gentlemen, all protocol observed. They say that I'm the Minister for Environment and Cultural Transition of Cote d'Ivoire, so you should be expecting me to speak in French, but I will be speaking in English. I am honored to join you at this high level forum of UNCCD COP 17. And I commend the UNCCD Secretariat and its business for land platform, the G20 Global Land Initiative, and all the partners for convening this essential dialogue, not only for developing countries, but also for developed countries. Mining is indispensable. to modern economies and global energy transition. Yet its legitimacy will increasingly depend on a simple test. Does mineral development leave actually land, water, biodiversity, and communities stronger or more vulnerable? There is a question mark. Our responsibility is therefore to move decisively from destruction alone to regeneration, from isolated project to landscape scale restoration, and from declarations of intent to measurable results. For Cote d'Ivoire, the issue is urgent. National baseline data indicate that approximately 3.5 billion hectares, nearly 11% of our territory, was affected by land degradation between 2000 and 2010. Illegal gold mining, remember that illegal gold mining because you will hear about it more, has compounded this pressure. A national mapping exercise conducted in 2022 identified 241 illegal mining sites involving more than 23,000 people. Nowadays, we're talking about 8,000 illegal sites involving 500,000, half of a million people, is becoming an emerging issue. Behind these figures are damaged soils, polluted waterways, loss of biodiversity, declining agricultural productivity, and in safe abandoned sites and communities whose livelihoods are at risk. This is not just an environmental concern. It's also a development, public health, food security, and governance challenge. Our position is clear. We must firmly combat illegal and destructive mining while supporting the progressive formalization of artisanal and small scale mining. We must strengthen environmental oversight, promote less polluting technologies, restore degraded sites, and create viable economic opportunities for affected communities. Protecting land should not be an obstacle to development. It's a condition for development that lasts. This is why I intend to use COP17 to build solidarity and collective momentum around the issue of illegal mining in our countries. But governments alone cannot deliver this transformation. The mining industry must be a central partner. Today, I invite mining leaders to act in four focus areas. First, adopt science-based time-bound land restoration targets covering active, closed, and legacy sites aligned with national land degradation neutrality targets. Second, integrate responsible mining closure and post-mining land use from early stage of project design with adequate financial guarantees. the post-closure sequester funds. Third, share technology, data, and proven practices, including remote sensing, pollution control, soil rehabilitation, revegetation, and circular approaches. Finally, fourth, help build credible restoration finance by combining corporate investment, public resources, development finance, and innovative instruments capable of opening at last scale landscape. The global compilation of mining industry best practices in land restoration being launched at this forum can become an important reference. Its true value, however, will be measured by what follows. Commitments implemented, actors restored, watershed protected, communities included, and progress transparently reported. Cote d'Ivoire stands ready to work with responsible mining companies financial institutions, the UNCCD and African partners to identify pilot rehabilitation sites, prepare bankable programs and establish shared monitoring mechanisms. Communities, especially women and young people, must participate fully in the design of those solutions and share fairly in the benefits. Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, be patient, it's almost the end of my long presentation. The choice before us is not between mining development and environmental protection. The real choice is between mining that transfers hidden costs to future generations and mining that actually creates lasting value for people and nature. Let us therefore make COP17 a turning point. Let us build a mining sector that restores what it disturbs, finances what it promises, and hence trust through transparent results. Let's ensure that Africa harnesses its mineral wealth without sacrificing the land on which its people depend. For God and my country, I thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. President.

That was amazing.

Okay, thank you. I see.

If you can sit here, please. Thank you, Minister Bamba, that was not a long speech, that was a masterclass in terms of the complexities and the challenges that the mining sector is confronting all around the world. So I thank you, as again coming from a mining country, you nailed it. So now I would like to welcome Mrs. Kathy Jackson, Chief Executive Cooper at Rio Tinto to share an industry leadership perspective on how major mining companies can translate commitments into measurable land restoration and stewardship action. Mrs. Jackson, you have the floor.

It's a hard act to follow, and I'm understanding that brevity is the key here, so we'll see. But good afternoon. Thank you very much to the Minister, to the Government of Mongolia and UNCCD for bringing us together here in Ulaanbaatar, and also for allowing us to talk from the Rio perspective about how we're rising to some of these challenges. I'm fortunate to know Mongolia well through our partnership here in Mongolia with the government on Oyootolgoi. And it is a particularly fitting place to have this conversation. The country's landscape, as I'm sure you have seen, is extraordinary, but so too are the pressures on its land and water. As many have said, the world needs more critical materials. Copper, which is my day-to-day focus, is a crucial material for electrification, infrastructure and economic development. But how we manage the land those materials come from is a defining question for our industry. And it's why the purpose of my company, Rio Tinto, is finding better ways to provide the materials the world needs. And while we may operate a mine for decades, the land has a life far beyond that operation. We must consider the long-term impacts on the land and water we use and the ecosystems and communities that depend on them. And here in Mongolia, that responsibility is very clear. Oyu Tolgoi is one of the largest known copper and gold deposits in the world and one of the safest and most sustainable operations. It's jointly owned by the government and Rio Tinto, and it brings enormous opportunity, but also important duties, particularly in a place like the Gobi Desert. Water is scarce, groundwater, pasture, wildlife, and local livelihoods are closely connected. And our first responsibility is to minimize the pressure that our operations create. So if I take water, for example, OT sources is operational water from deep saline aquifers, which are separate from the drinkable water sources used by herders and livestock. And we're subject to strict withdrawal limits. It's also one of the most water efficient operations in the world. In the first quarter of this year, we used an average of 0.45 meters cubed of water for every ton of ore we process. And that compares to a global average of about 1.2, so almost three times more. We operate zero wastewater discharge, and more than 86% of our water is recycled. But our stewardship doesn't stop at the mine boundary. We've worked with herders, with local government, with civil society to upgrade more than 200 traditional wells, improving water storage, flood protection, and access. And we've worked with Kering, the Wildlife Conservation Society and Stanford University on the South Gobi Cashmere Project, helping herders produce higher value cashmere from smaller, healthier herds and reducing pressure on the fragile grasslands. And we're supporting UNESCO and local communities in the development of the Hanbod Shadzaav Geopark, somewhere I'm hoping to visit later on this week, which would be Mongolia's first national geopark and is working to become a UNESCO global geopark. The approach to stewardship extends to restoration. In 2021, OT committed to plant up to 100 million trees in support of Mongolia's Billion Tree Initiative that the minister mentioned. By the end of 2026, we will have delivered 49 million tree equivalents towards that commitment, and that includes 11 million trees established through direct planting. We've also rehabilitated more than 1,600 hectares of degraded land abandoned by previous artisanal mining activity that a number of speakers referenced. And we've invested in forestry capabilities to make this a long-term program. So six tree nurseries, a seed gene bank, and also capability building. So that experience has helped shape the commitments that we are making today. As part of Mongolia's STEP action agenda, together with Erdene-Oyol Tolgoi, we are committing to a coordinated action across landscape restoration, water security and renewable energy. On land, we will continue to deliver our 100 million trees commitment, whilst broadening our focus from just planting trees to also restoring landscapes, enhancing biodiversity and strengthening ecosystem resilience. So this includes up to 5,000 hectares of saxaul reforestation in the Gobi, as well as larger reforestation projects elsewhere in Mongolia, in North and Central Mongolia. On water, we're going to support science innovation and practical trials to strengthen Mongolia's long-term water resilience. This will be advanced through research on water security in the Gobi. a managed aquifer recharge trial and work on surface water harvesting and restoration. And on energy, we will support Mongolia's energy transition through a commitment to source a substantial share of annual electricity demand from renewable sources. This commitment will help catalyze one of Mongolia's largest renewable energy developments. Each of these commitments addresses a practical barrier. For land, we need the capability to restore landscapes at scale. For water, we need the evidence to make informed long-term decisions about how water is managed. And for renewable energy, demand that will give developers greater confidence to invest in new generation. The challenge from here is to demonstrate that these approaches work at scale and that they continue beyond a single program. That also means being open about what we're learning. And together with the UNCCD and the Global Reporting Initiative, we've published a report on sustainability disclosure, water stewardship and mine rehabilitation in arid environments, drawing on our experience at Oyotolgoi. Better disclosure and common approaches to measurement make it easier to compare results, learn from them and invest in the most effective approaches. Ultimately, the test of the commitments made here today will be the real world changes they deliver in years to come. That is the standard we should hold ourselves to. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Mrs. Jackson, for that clear definition of the challenges and exposing very concretely the importance of scaling not only the land restoration, the water stewardship and the renewable energy are three of the most important topics that every mining company is needing to address. And regarding that, it's fantastic now to have one of those really properly explained by Mr. Xavier Sanmartin Tilay, Senior Executive Vice President of the Mining Business Unit at Orano, to share an industry perspective on responsible mining operation and post-mining landscape restoration. Mr. Sanmartin, the floor is yours.

Thank you, you manage well my name, which is not easy. Excellencies, dear audience, it's really an honor to be here to explain the project that Orano has the privilege to develop in Mongolia. At Orano, we are mining uranium, and we are mining uranium in different geography, but we are quite pleased to develop a project in Mongolia, and I had the pleasure to be in Dar Gobi yesterday. Developing a mining project means going through a cycle from exploration to project development to operation and to remediation. And in Orano, we look at our responsibility toward all this cycle and we like to make sure that our strategy cover the stakes around the environment and communities from the beginning up to the end of the project. First, we apply the same environmental principle across all our projects while respecting the local requirements. Our ambition is not only to comply to the requirements but also to develop and to take voluntary commitments. To develop them based on scientific data and to make sure that we have a long-term stewardship of natural resources. We want to contribute actively to the industry dialogue and we are part of ICMM and it's a very important commitment for us and we are also welcoming the industry consolidating mining standard initiatives where we believe we can establish a solution in line with the expectation set by Minister Bamba. And standards are not alone because a mining project is a long-term project and so to make sure that this project is well embedded with the expectation of the communities at different and we leave a part for them to define how the future will be set. So first we integrate restoration in stakes from the very beginning of the project. For instance, in Mongolia, we are starting a project, we will start construction in a few weeks, but we have already defined how we see the future and what we see will be remediation 30 years down the road. Currently, we are quite proud to say that all our former sites are either remediated or under our remediation program. And that's a strong commitment we can take. And I'm happy to take this commitment in front of His Excellency, the Minister of Mining of Mongolia. Second, we use science to guide our decisions. We are funding a research program. Some of them are, we started some in Mongolia. We have some in University of France. and especially with the technique we develop in Mongolia, we want to see some interaction with clay and water and to see how this can impact our remediation and improve it. We believe that science can bring good understanding of the quality of the solution and may help us to anticipate the impact and make sure that we provide a high standard remediation. We use also new technology to manage our understanding and the follow-up of the wildlife on our sites to make sure that we have a positive impact and when we leave the site, we leave it in better condition than when we have taken it. And the last thing is after the remediation, so at the end of the cycle after decades, We need to make sure in the way we develop our activity, we leave a positive footprint to the communities. It can be regarding education, it can be also on the way we leave the site and the way we leave the activity. We have done that in France, for instance, on all our sites. We have also developed solar farms. And we are quite proud of having returned to the communities, the site in Canada in Cliff Lake, and to make sure that today it's a place where people can hunt and fish and do it safely. Obviously, it was a strong commitment because it took decades to follow up and to make sure we do it in safe conditions. But now we are proud of that. And this type of commitment we like to take with our future projects. Today we are starting a project in Mongolia in Zootshovo. So it's a very important project for us and we make sure we apply those principles to this project. We are operating in Darne Gobi, so we know water, like it was explained by Jotinto, water is a very important resource. So we have launched initiative to well understand hydrological study and geological studies to make sure of what is impact of our operation and also how we can impact positively. We are also starting some project with local communities before starting in fact our mine even to make sure that how we can impact and how we can impact positively their economical activity or their condition. This has also The technology we have selected for this mine is also in strong relationship with the condition of the site. And we have selected a technology which will have a little usage of water and little impact on the surface. It's ISR technology, and we have a strong control on environmental impact. Obviously, it has taken time to explain it to our stakeholders. But we are quite proud of this achievement and we are quite happy of what we can do. So the future of mining, because we need to mine, and you said it and I fully concord with that, is to do it responsibly, is to minimize our footprint and to become a positive force for the land restoration by combining science, innovation, shared standards, close cooperation with communities, we can ensure that mining landscapes continue to provide value for both people and nature long after the mining has been ended. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Xavier. It's definitely brilliant having heard not only at the political level the importance that the mining sector represents and now from two big players in the industry how they're approaching these difficulties. But Minister Bamba also brought the importance of less known or less addressed stakeholders like artisanal mining, illegal mining, small informal mining, that's part of the reality, as it's part of the reality, the aspects of indigenous communities. It's essential that this conversation includes the voices and experiences of indigenous peoples and local communities. So therefore, I now invite Mr. Fidele Mbilizi Mutimamwa of the National League of Indigenous Pygmy Association of the Congo. Mr. Mbilizi Mutimamwa, the floor is yours.

Excellence, Mr. Minister, distinguished guests, dear colleagues, and all the representatives of the indigenous people here in this room. I am Fidel Milisi, I am the director restoration des terres et paysages forestiers à la Ligue nationale des associations autochtones pygmées de la RDC et membre de la communauté autochtone Batois de la RDC. Et mon intervention va porter sur le partage d'expériences sur l'exploitation minière et son impact sur les droits des peuples autochtones. J'interviens pour partager cette expérience et les enseignements tirés de l'exploitation minière et de ses impacts sur les communautés autochtones en République démocratique du Congo. L'impact de l'exploitation minière sur ces communautés entraîne la perte de terres ancestrales et de forêts. who constitute our natural habitat and our source of sustenance. The pollution of rivers, the disappearance of fauna, which affects our traditional food. Forced displacement and increased marginalization because indigenous communities ne sont que rarement consultés dans les projets miniers. Les conflits d'usage, les communautés locales, les peuples autochtones et les agriculteurs. S'agissant de la restauration des paysages post-miniers, plusieurs initiatives nationales et locales with my organization, the National League of Pygmy Indigenous Associations in Congo, the Lina Pico, are organized and implemented, notably aimed at the development and validation. At the national level, a five-year strategic plan for the restoration and securing land and space rights of indigenous and local communities in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Implementing a program called R4 plus S. The first R is the restoration of forest landscapes and degraded lands. The second R is the regeneration of forests. The third R is the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. And the fourth air, it's the revitalization with the S. So these spaces are restored, they have to be secured. But now, you need to identify the location of three typologies of land, the indigenous people around the protected areas, including the conflictual lands. the mixed lands and the lands proper to the indigenous peoples. Organization of community reforestation campaigns with local species and trees to be planted. With experience, we have tried with trees to be planted. for the CNP to strengthen the means of subsistence of indigenous peoples through the restoration by the trees to caterpillars, allow the communities and indigenous people to pick these caterpillars there to strengthen their means of subsistence. Promotion promote the natural generation assisted in the integration of traditional knowledge of the elders on medicinal plants and forest cycles. restoration, sécurisation de plus de 500 000 hectares des peuples autochtones et communautés locales dans les différents villages et territoires de la RDC et enfin sensibilisation des jeunes et des femmes autochtones à devenir acteurs de la génération à leur territoire en liant la restauration écologique à la sécurité alimentaire. And as for responsible mining, our advocacy focuses on the requirement of strict environmental and social standards in mining projects, transparency of contracts and equitable sharing of benefits with indigenous and local communities, the implementation of mechanisms for prior consultation for indigenous peoples and local communities to be heard before any exploitation. The defence of the principle that economic benefits must contribute to the inclusive and sustainable development of local communities and indigenous peoples, including health, education and food. Les dirigeants miniers doivent incarner une vision responsable et durable. Le leadership consiste donc à transformer les pratiques industrielles en levier de durabilité. La nécessité d'un dialogue constant avec le gouvernement, les ONG et les communautés. Et enfin, notre plaidoyer se concentre sur the long-term commitments for climate resilience and inclusive development. And so, I am convinced that this experience can enrich the process of the UNCCD and contribute to a more inclusive and sustainable governance of land. I say and I thank you.

Now, I would like to invite Maria Jesus Rodriguez Sancho, Director General for Biodiversity, Forest and Desertification in Spain's Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge to share the insights and lessons from Spain. Maria Jesus, the floor is yours.

Well, good afternoon, Excellencies, distinguished delegates, colleagues. First of all, I would like to thank UNCCD and Business for Land Platform, the G20 Global Land Initiative, and of course, the Government of Mongolia for convening this important discussion. It's a big opportunity for me to participate in this dialogue. because Spain fully welcomes this initiative because it reflects a fundamental idea. The future of mining cannot be measured only by the minerals we extract, but by the landscape we restore, the communities we strengthen, and the opportunities we create during mining activities and after mining. activities. In other words, a land positive mining. For many decades, mining has been an essential driver for economic development and now is essential for energy transition. However, this transition only can be sustainable if is accompanying equally with ambitious objectives to restore ecosystem, recover biodiversity and improve people life. I would like to share with you two Spanish initiatives that have been awarded by international organizations. The first of them is in the framework of the just transition strategy in Spain with the European Recovery Funds. Spain launched one of Europe's largest public investment in ecological restoration of former coal mining areas. More than 105 million 50 million, sorry, have been mobilized to restore the great landscape in Spain. More than 2,200 hectares of former mining land, while creating hundreds of quality work, of quality jobs, with priority given to former coal miners and workers in auxiliary companies. But these projects are much more than restoring land. They are restoring water systems, removing polluted sediments and protecting aquifers. They are restoring ecosystems, planting more than one million native trees and shrubs for the recovery of grasslands, forests and wildlife habitats. And they are improving also public safety, sealing abandoned mine entrances and removing hazardous wastes. And very important, they are restoring economic opportunities by supporting sustainable forestry, extensive livestock farming, rural tourism, and new local businesses. In short, restoration is becoming a new driver for territorial development. This initiative has been recognized by the International Labour Organization as a good practice in delivering a just transition that protects both workers and community, recognizing that the most inspiring aspect of this experience is that the people who once extracted coal now are restoring nature. And this demonstrates that ecological restoration is not only an environmental policy, It's an investment in people. It creates skilled employment. It strengthens rural communities and reinforces social cohesion. And the second initiative I wanted to share with you is an initiative in the framework of the largest European saltwater lagoon. It's called Mar Menor, it's in the southeast of Spain. and it has long-term and severe environmental degradation caused by heavy metals residues from abandoned mining activities in their basin. The initiative is through an integrated restoration strategy combining tailings sealing, phytoremediation and biological restoration. Spain is working to recover this unique ecosystem. This effort has been recognized by the United Nations as one of the world restoration flagships, highlighting the ecological, social and institutional value of this example for the international community. The conclusion is that no single actor can achieve land degradation neutrality. Governments, can create the right policy framework, industry companies can bring innovation, technology and investment, and communities provide knowledge, stewardship and long term commitment. Together, we can transform former mining landscape into productive ecosystems that continue generating value long after destruction has finished. Thank you very much for your attention.

While I believe they're going to remove the podium and instead of dancing or singing, I'm going to try to summarize what we just already heard. We heard from governments the importance that mining sector is representing as a growth, of course, job initiative and sector. But at the same time, we all know that that cannot happen in any way. It must happen, as Maria Jesus just said, as a land positive mining that also brings opportunities for people for jobs. And taking Mr. Mbizizi Mutinbawa's words, how important is to create opportunities for restoration, the land reforestation for reducing emissions, but also for regularize the land as well as using the ancestral knowledge and to create opportunities for health using, of course, the topics of water and food. We heard from big companies about the importance of using this opportunity that decarbonization globally represent for the mining sector. We know that we will require more minerals, but the world will require better minerals. And those better minerals, as Katie mentioned, will come with the scale of land restoration, of water usage at the level that makes sense and renewable energy that can provide, of course, opportunities for not just the mining side, but much more than that. I think that we have heard many voices So far in this first part of the conversation, we got some, of course, perspective from government, industry and community. We now turn to a discussion on innovation and partnership. how standards, industry networks, technical expertise, restoration science and partnership can help transform mining landscapes at scale. So it is my pleasure to hand over to Mrs. Danzile Mamimbele, the president-elect of the Land Rehabilitation Society of South Africa, who will moderate the panel discussion. Danzile, please join me. And now you've got the power.

Oh wow. Good afternoon everyone. I am Dansele Mavimbela from South Africa. I am the president-elect of the Land Rehabilitation Society of Southern Africa known as LARSA. And it is a pleasure to be given this opportunity today to moderate this session. I'm going to call upon my five panelists May I please have Mr. Andrew Scott come through? And may I also have Ms. Kristy Disney Bruckner? May I have John Lindberg? And Justin Peterson? And Joseph Kiseka? Thank you. Welcome everyone. As mentioned, we are here to talk about transforming mining landscapes, talk about innovation and partnerships. So, and what we've been taught by reality is that innovation on its own is not enough. We do need each other. We do need those partnerships to happen. So I'm going to start with you, Andrew. So Andrew is the CEO of the Global Mining Guidelines Group. So, Enron, I'd like for you to share with us or with everyone here, what are the most practical technical innovations or collaborative guidelines that can help companies to improve land restoration and also reduce the impact across the mining life cycle?

And thank you and thank you to the organizers of this fantastic conference. It's really enlightening in some of the conversations and some of the conversations that are coming through, especially when we heard earlier just before in the previous session. So to answer the question, collaboration is key to making this. We can't do this on our own. A single mining company cannot do this on their own. A single country cannot do it on their own. So I love the reference to the seas, the citizens, the companies, the countries. and so forth. So the key, I think that we need to all be working together because it's it we all play a role. And so from a global mining guidelines group, we are an associate into the ISO and IEEE organizations. So we the documents that come together and come from the committee come from the community, come from all of the partnerships actually act to see documents into the standards development. So yes, there are standards that are There are some that do exist, but there's a lot of gaps, especially when we're talking about the big problem that's emerging. So there's a lot of gaps that we need to work together on to overcome these. The other thing is another point that was brought up earlier was the need for planning for post mine land use at the very beginning. That's an important aspect that needs to be reinforced. And so there is a guideline conversation that's happening right now called Rethink Mine Design to try and encourage and to sort of frame how can we do that because the way in which we've designed mines really hasn't changed much in the last 60 years and we have to change the mindset on building in the post land use and the opportunities that have been talked about already into the design and the original applications for each mine at that stage. So thank you.

Thank you, thank you, Andrew. That means we still have a long way and we really need to think about those seas and the coasts and so on. So I'm gonna turn to you, Kristy, the thorn amongst the roses. So you are the director for law and policy at the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance. And what I want to hear from you, or what I want to know, based on the fact that we all know that strong laws and regulatory frameworks are essential for responsible mining and successful mine closures. based on your work at the IRMA, what are key elements for an effective regulatory framework? Can you share with us? And then also mention some of the countries, if any, that provide particularly strong examples of governance, accountability, and post-mining restoration.

Thank you. I will begin by saying I haven't seen one country anywhere in the world who has gotten it all right yet. And even where we do see strong law on the books, implementation can be very challenging and is very challenging. This is indicative of the complexity of the mining sector and the reality that it takes a framework of law and policy that is looking not only at the mining law, but a range of environmental laws and policies looking across, you know, environmental and social impact assessment and management, the many layers to land use planning and layers of rights that include indigenous rights on indigenous lands, and multiple types of rights that might have been granted by a government for timber, for example, mining, and this might also overlap protected areas to some extent so I agree with Andrew that it really takes a collaborative approach so you know first is getting good law on the books and that takes listening to communities and indigenous rights holders working with companies understanding the what investors are looking for and responsible mining So really collaboration across a range of interests. At IRMA, the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance, we have brought together across jurisdictions and across all of the sectors that are concerned about mining, a conversation that now has spanned 20 years about what do we mean when we say responsible mining? What is the definition? And our answer to that is the IRMA standard for responsible mining that looks at business integrity, environmental responsibility, social responsibility, planning for positive legacies. As we just heard from Rio Tinto, that land survives far beyond the life of a mine. And we have to think about these issues not only from a lens of equity between current generations, but also equity between current and future generations. So Collaboration also means working across not only government ministries, but collaboration from national to subnational governance structures. And we've seen a lot of collaboration emerging internationally as well. And this forum is one example of that. Across the UN, the UN Secretary General has an initiative on critical energy transition minerals that's looking at a range of topics and solutions and this includes environmental concerns and land use rights transparency benefit sharing addressing abandoned mines and we heard some really great examples from Spain just now about how or orphaned and abandoned mines can be remediated. And these examples, we need to hear more of them in South Africa and across the globe. So IRMA is as a voluntary standard, one tool that can be used by government stakeholders and rights holders to improve role of law around land rights and other topics. And mine sites are the main actor implementing the Irma standard at the site level and we have now 138 mine sites that are implementing Irma um and engaged across 39 countries so I'll I'll leave with a challenge and opportunity which is that we don't yet have a mine site in Mongolia engaged in Irma and the first step of engaging is to conduct a self-assessment in MindMeasure, which is our digital tool, and that is completely free of charge. So we really hope to see a first Mongolian mine site step up to lead the charge in engaging in IRMA. But the very first requirement of the IRMA standard is to implement the domestic legal framework work and that and that includes you know protecting land and land uses um and really gives companies an opportunity to demonstrate best practice and be audited against the Irma standard and show you know governments can also share where they have Irma audits in their jurisdiction that this is evidence of good practice and um of a place to be responsibly investing.

Thank you. Thank you, Christy. That challenge means something, and I hope it will something will come out of that. And having this platform for the first time for a mining forum, hopefully the next one, we will be sharing more about outcomes that will emerge from this conversation. Welcome John. John Lindberg is the policy and government affairs principal at the International Council on Mining and Metals. So tell us how the ICMM is helping strengthening the standards and guidance on responsible mining, mine closure, post mining landscapes, restoration, and where do you actually see the greatest opportunities for further progress in this work?

Thank you very much. And as has been mentioned by all speakers before, I first and foremost want to thank the UNCCD Secretariat for creating the space to talk about something that fundamentally impacts all of us, perhaps not in a way that we think about mining, maybe us on the panel think about mining every day, but most people will not think about mining in their everyday lives, even if it does impact us daily. And for those of you that might not be aware of ICMM. ICMM was set up 25 years ago as a response to the fact that society had lost faith and trust in the mining industry. So we started off as five of the world's largest mining companies. Today, we count 26 of the world's largest mining companies amongst our members. and together they make up for more than 35% of the global mining industry. And ICMM has a very simple purpose. It's not to lobby for the mining industry, they do that very well themselves, but to raise the bar and to help define what responsibility actually looks like on the ground. So ICMM, up until the end of this year, has been one of the largest standard setter for the mining industry. Because to be a member of ICMM, you have to implement our mining principles. That's a condition of membership. So more than 650 of the world's largest mines today implement the mining principles. When they were first published, this was groundbreaking. This really set the bar for what responsibility looked like. But this standard hasn't been static because as our membership has grown, as our members have opened or operated new mines in new and challenging or not so challenging jurisdictions and a society's expectations on the industry has changed, so has the standard. And the reason I'm saying that up until the end of this year, ICMM has been a standard setter is because one of the things that we have realized is that the industry itself shouldn't be marking its own homework. We shouldn't be defining the standards that we then hold ourselves to. Society has moved on from that, and rightfully so. So ICMM, alongside with three of the other largest mining standards in the world, so that's the Coppermark, the Mining Association of Canada's Towards Sustainable Mining and the World Gold Council's Responsible Gold Mining Principles have over the last three and a half years been undergoing what is known as the Consolidated Mining Standards Initiative or CMSI, which will be launching early next year. And this standard is the evolution, but also the revolution of what responsible mining looks like. And that includes issues that we've been discussing today around mine closure, post mining landscapes, but it starts from where the mining sector starts and then goes through all the way until end of mine and so on. And I think you posed a question, where do we see the greatest opportunities for progress? Well, I think it's as depressing as perhaps it is. Doing things responsibly is not the standard in the mining industry today. It's a simple fact. Most materials that are extracted today is not extracted responsibly. So if we want to talk about a just transition, if we want to talk about a digital revolution that is also respecting the rights of stakeholders, right holders, the rights of mother nature, we need to start off by ensuring that responsible mining is the global norm. And this is where standards such as CMSI, such as our colleagues at IRMA comes into play. Because it isn't a question of, you know, this standard is better than the other. We need to start off by making sure that standards is the global minimum. And then from there, we can talk about if you want to aim for really good, excellent, or best in class. But good needs to be the minimum. And I think this is where the greatest opportunity, but also the challenge lies. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, John. Justin and Joseph, we have practically two minutes to get through to your questions. So I'm going to start with you, Justin Peterson, who is the regional director of Australia Environment and Geosciences at Stantec. So Justin, from the perspective of a practitioner, what makes post-mining land restoration successful in practice and what mistakes should be avoided when planning for rehabilitation and closure?

Yeah, thank you. And like all these topics, difficult to cover in four minutes, but I'll say the room has just been buzzing today, which is really exciting for all of us. As you say, we live and breathe mining every day, but to see this amount of interest in it, and the people listening is a really good thing. It's also really good that I'm following John and ICMM because we actually are following a lot of their stuff with GISTM. I want to reference some of those things because I have some of the similar themes that I think a really strong globally accepted framework is what we need. And I come from the consulting side of the business and we love frameworks because it gives us something to measure to, it gives us something to learn and sell our clients. So using the tailing standard as a corollary I think is a really good example, there are ecological restoration frameworks out there, but can we get to the point where we have a GISLR, right, landscape restoration standard that's globally accepted? I think once we do, and the science is behind it, you will see the big miners in particular jump on board. They're gonna say, you know, we wanna be gold level, we wanna, I forget the levels John used, but yeah, your various levels can be can be worked out then. But so won't get into the tech and operational things here of how a great, you know, landscape restoration or mine closure project is delivered. But what I will say is AI and remote sensing is making the monitoring of those programs a lot cheaper, which helps, right? So some of this stuff is becoming much more cost effective in almost real time because because of the advances in technology. So that's a really good thing. But Kind of reiterating what a lot of the others have said, it all comes down to having a good plan that's measurable, that we can then implement, and that we know what our targets are, right? Once we have those, and once we have them in a schedule, industry is generally pretty good at meeting those commitments. And somebody mentioned the plan, I think, sorry, was it Andrew, you at the beginning? We've all been a part of a project where a waste rock pile has moved three times, right? So this happens, right? How can we avoid that? It's a huge waste of resources. It's a huge waste of energy. Can we get a longer term plan than just quarterly results meeting those, right? So yeah, I guess my takeaway is, you know, a good long term plan that's multi-year or multi-decade, a framework that is globally accepted that we can deliver to and deliver against, and getting that sort of globally recognized standard is what I'm looking for.

Thank you, Justin, for telling all the other minutes. Finally, Joseph Kiseka, the lead scientist at the Nature Conservancy, TNC. So I'm going to ask you a question based on your work to say, what does nature positive approach to mining looks like in practice? And how can companies, government ensure that mining contributes to a broader landscape outcomes for biodiversity, ecosystem, resilience, and communities?

All in two minutes. Okay.

Three seconds.

I guess I've worked in dozens of countries around the world on mining issues. I'm gonna focus my comments on Mongolia 'cause I'm back working in Mongolia again. First, I want to acknowledge that mining companies provide a massive economic advantage to Mongolia. It's about a third of the GDP, the largest portion of export revenues. They create local infrastructure, create jobs. So they also contribute to offsetting their residual impacts and more recently things, commitments like nature positive. They also are really pushing our understanding of how to minimize and restore environmental impacts that apply not just to mining, but to other kinds of environmental impacts. It's all super important. But the way we currently implement mitigation, that's the mitigation hierarchy from avoid, minimize, restore, and offset, is largely inadequate. It doesn't deliver great outcomes for conservation. And largely because the investments that individual mining companies or mine sites put contribute to don't contribute to a broader landscape level conservation vision. Because we're focused on an individual mine or an individual development, we miss one, the broader regional and landscape scale cumulative impacts. But we also miss that vision for their contributions to contribute to the broader conservation goals. So what needs to change? We need to go big and we need to go early. By going big, we need to develop landscape scale mitigation plans before mines are under operation so we can understand what step of the mitigation hierarchy would be most appropriate from avoidance to minimization to compensation or offsets. We need to go early, so we need to have those plans built So again, they can inform the development of an individual mine site. We have opportunities to bring the well developed conservation planning tools to bear for mining development all the way through from formulation to closure. And we're not doing that for sure. So a unique opportunity, I think, here in Mongolia with the recent project financing for permanence project, which has been talked about, I think, a little bit earlier in this session. There are opportunities to harness the investments the mining industry are making through the stakeholder based conservation plan that MNLF will develop. And that will ensure that the investments they make deliver the biggest return on investment. Example of that is that MNLF just signed an MOU with the Chingiz Khan Management Fund. So they're to focus and think about how those offset funds are used. MNLF is going to finance a update of a conservation plan, work that the Nature Conservancy did 10 plus years ago when I used to come to Mongolia all the time. that stakeholder based conservation plan will guide both MNLF's investments but also can guide offsets and nature positive commitments. It would be ideal if the mining industry were to join as part of that process to be a key stakeholder and then more importantly commit to the completion and investment of that landscape level conservation goal. Thank you.

Thank you. Let's clap for them. They did very well given the time, the timing that we were given. And I would like to thank all of you and you for joining this session. And I would like to squeeze in a group picture. I saw others doing that. Come quickly. Thank you so much everyone.

Thank you, Densili, and thank you to all the speakers, panelists, and participants. Today's discussion was has highlighted a clear message achieving global land restoration goals require requires engagement with all sectors that affect land including mining while maintaining a firm focus on prevention responsible land stewardship restoration accountability and community well-being the challenge as we heard now is to turn dialogue into action with stronger partnership, credible commitments, investment in restoration and practical collaboration through platforms such as the G20 Global Land Initiative and Business for Land. As Minister Bamba said, I think that we are clear that we need to build collaboration based on solidarity. It's clear for all of us that there is a critical minerals opportunity. It's clear also that the world needs 100% of the mining sector to operate under responsible mining standards. The other thing that needs to be clear is this room, because right after is going to be a fashion show. So unless you are a model that wants to walk in the catwalk, you got to put your feet out of the room right now. So thank you for joining us at COP17. We look forward to continued collaboration for a land positive future. Bye. Thank you, Mr. President.